The 1980s miners’ strike made foes of friends and families. Could it have bred killers? Writer James Graham reveals how his harrowing new six-parter drew on unforgettable events from his Nottinghamshire childhood
Annesley Woodhouse, the Nottinghamshire village where James Graham grew up, was twice swamped by hordes of police and media. The dramatist was a baby the first time, during the miners’ strike of 1984-5. But on the second occasion, in 2004, he was just back from Hull University when an ex-miner, Keith Frogson, was murdered. “In those first moments,” says Graham, “the police were terrified that someone was killing for reasons going back to the strike.”
When another villager – Chanel Taylor – was killed, the case became even more complicated, bringing further waves of police to the scene. Fascinated by the psychology of officers returning to a community where they were widely reviled for their actions during the strike, Graham has fictionalised the double trouble into Sherwood, a six-part BBC drama. Viewers led by the title to expect something about Robin Hood are not completely wrong: a crossbow was one of the murder weapons, and the vast verdant canopy of Sherwood Forest became the location of one of the biggest manhunts in UK history.
